sjar Chapter 1250 Colonel Mori's Fate
Chapter 1250 Colonel Mori's Fate
The remaining soldiers were dumbfounded. They hadn't expected that even arresting a few elderly farmers in a village would be so dangerous. Back when they occupied the area, wasn't this kind of thing a common occurrence? And there wasn't much going on in the villages; they could do whatever they wanted. Why was things so difficult in southern Shandong now?
After disembarking at Pujiang, their mission was to support the Third Division's northward advance in the Lunan region. As a newly formed unit, they did not fight on the front lines; the frontline troops would clear out the enemy first, and then they would carefully eliminate the resistance fighters.
This mission made them feel like they'd been cursed for eight lifetimes. Just look at the surrounding situation; they couldn't see a single enemy, yet their men were being killed relentlessly. Normal soldiers weren't aware of the overall situation before, but now, with people dying almost every hour, even the captured laborers knew what was happening.
Colonel Mori was so frightened that he quickly crawled under the donkey cart. At that moment, he didn't care about anything else; as long as he could save his life, he wouldn't mind jumping into the outhouse. The gunfire was too close to him now, at most only about 500 meters away.
Colonel Mori was breathing heavily, his chest heaving. Luckily, he hadn't jumped too high; otherwise, the sniper would have spotted him and wouldn't have killed his company commander. He would definitely have become their number one target.
"Kogoro, find me a set of your military uniform."
As Colonel Mori lay prone under the donkey cart, he whispered to one of his guards that the man was about the same size as him and was usually quite clean, so his clothes should smell a little less like other people's.
Back in Pujiang, he had heard that some officers were wearing soldiers' uniforms on the battlefield. At the time, he scoffed at this, thinking those bastards were incredibly cowardly and had completely disgraced the Great Japanese Empire. "Don't they even dare to show their officer's identity on the battlefield? What kind of war have they fought!" he thought.
Thinking back on those words now makes my face burn. It wasn't that those people were cowards, but rather that the chances of dying on the battlefield were too high, especially when you were wearing an officer's uniform. That company commander was just fulfilling his duty, and the third shot hit him in the chest. If he hadn't called for the others to lie down, he might still be alive.
When the company commander was hit, Colonel Mori felt a sharp pain in his chest, as if he himself had been hit.
Kogoro quickly pulled out a set of his own clothes from his backpack. However, compared to the officers' uniforms, the soldiers' clothes looked rather shabby. But Colonel Mori didn't care at all at the moment, and hurriedly changed his clothes under the donkey cart.
By the time he finished changing his clothes, more than 30 Japanese soldiers had finished sweeping the area where the gunfire had started and were signaling to this side with flags that they hadn't found anything.
"It's the same as before, just tell them to come back quickly."
After changing his clothes, Colonel Mori was no longer as arrogant as before. After all, if you were jumping around, you would easily attract the attention of those around you. Even if you were wearing a soldier's uniform, the chances of being shot were still not small.
Just as Colonel Mori finished speaking, and the people next to him were preparing to use flag signals to notify the search teams, two explosions came from the mountain. The search team, which originally consisted of more than 30 people, was now probably wiped out by more than half.
This is a booby trap!
Even from this distance, judging by the scale of the explosions, Colonel Mori knew they were booby traps set with hand grenades. It seems that initially, one soldier stepped on one, and those behind him panicked upon seeing it, causing the explosions to occur one after another.
These guerrillas are absolutely despicable; it always ends up like this. They shoot us with sniper rifles, then lure us into a raid, only to have all sorts of tricks waiting for us once we get there.
No, this isn't guerrilla warfare at all. How could guerrillas have so many tricks up their sleeves? This must have been left behind by the 72nd Army. Their weaponry was quite advanced; their optical sights are even more sophisticated than ours.
Previously, another unit had found a damaged optical sight on the battlefield. According to knowledgeable people within the military, this thing would sell for $60 each in Europe. What guerrilla force would be so extravagant? $60 is equivalent to 240 silver dollars, almost the monthly food expenses for more than 100 families in China.
At that time, the headquarters issued orders to the officers in charge, telling them that the situation in the surrounding area was not as simple as they thought. On the surface, there were no regular troops from the 72nd Army Group, but the guerrillas scattered around were quite capable, so they had to be extremely careful during the mopping-up operation.
The personnel in the various units paid little attention to the headquarters' instructions. They had initially feared the 72nd Army, but now intelligence indicated that the entire 72nd Army was holed up in the Jiaodong region, meaning the area in front of them was likely undefended. Therefore, during the sweep, they would at most encounter some other Chinese armed forces, which they considered insignificant.
But it was precisely this carefree attitude that has now gotten them into serious trouble. Colonel Mori didn't know the situation on the other side, but on his own side, including this wave, nearly 300 men had died. When they came out, there were more than 2600 of them, and now, without even seeing the enemy's face, more than a ninth of them had already perished.
This was only the second day since they came out, and their sweeping plan was supposed to last half a month. Just thinking about the next ten days or so sent chills down Colonel Mori's spine. If they continued sweeping under these circumstances, probably none of us would make it back alive. But if we didn't sweep, how could we bring back the supplies? If we didn't have any supplies, our superiors probably wouldn't be happy.
Warfare is all about money and supplies, and it's clear that Japan's national treasury can't support this war anymore. They've been given orders to take everything they have, whether it's in cities or villages, to support the war effort, regardless of the lives of the local people.
They had been waiting for this order for a long time, thinking it was a chance to make a fortune, but it turned out to be a chance to lose their lives...